With the expansion of telecommunication and computer technology, increasing amounts of electronic equipment are required at various commercial and business facilities. To facilitate interconnection and access to such equipment, it is typically installed in a rack structure. The amounts of electronic equipment required in many commercial. installations may result in numerous rack structures being required to accommodate all of the required equipment. Furthermore, technological advancements permit more and more electronic equipment to fit into increasingly smaller spaces. These forces are combining to produce relatively dense electronic installations that require significant amounts of power and that generate increasing amounts of heat.
For such equipment to operate properly, and to maintain comfort for persons operating and working on such equipment, a relatively stable and comfortable temperature and humidity must be provided. This has typically been accomplished through the use of air-to-air cooling and conventional air conditioning. As the density of electronic equipment has increased, it has become increasingly difficult to remove the heat generated using the air-to-air cooling and conventional air conditioning alone. It has become necessary to install additional localized cooling for the rack structures and enclosures containing electronic equipment. To efficiently remove the heat generated by the electronic equipment this localized cooling is frequently liquid-based, for example using chilled water or glycol.
The power requirements of today""s electronic equipment have also presented numerous challenges. For example, the devices required in a typical commercial installation may require either alternating current or direct current power in one or more of a number of standard voltages. Furthermore, many facilities are required to operate around-the-clock and thus require continuously available sources of power. In addition, sophisticated electronic systems require highly regulated and stable power sources, which minimize the risk of malfunction or damage to the sensitive electronic because of undesirable transient irregularities in the supplied power.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system for providing cooling and power for rack-mounted electronics. It is a further object of the present invention to provide cooling that is highly efficient by using a liquid-based cooling system. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a redundant cooling system in which failure of part of the cooling system does not prevent operation of the electronic equipment and in which the remaining operational portions of the cooling system have sufficient capacity to cool the entire electronic system.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an integrated system for supplying the power requirements of diverse electronic equipment. It is an object of the present invention to provide both alternating current and direct current power to the electronic equipment. A further object is to provide high quality power that is uninterruptible and redundant as well as modular and scalable.